Latino State News

Chicago Hispanic Population - Moving Further West and Into the Burbs

The Census ten years ago showed the Southwest Side neighborhood surrounding 54th and Kildare was 67 percent white residents with no Hispanic heritage. The latest census however, has the area at 68 percent Hispanic, with whites dropping to less than a third of the population.

The Chicago Hispanic population is moving west into the bungalow belt on the Northwest and Southwest Sides while non-Hispanic whites are moving west from the lakefront into less expensive neighborhoods.
Hispanics are also moving into the suburbs.

Latinos and blacks appear to be following traditional migration patterns, “flowing outward like spokes on a wheel,” much like Jews and Poles did earlier, according to Kenneth Johnson, a demographer at the University of New Hampshire.
One break from tradition, however, is that Hispanic immigrants are also now moving directly to suburban destinations, like Elgin and Aurora. “Those areas have modestly priced housing and a lot of jobs,” Johnson said.

In Chicago, Hispanics became the new most numerous group mostly in areas on the Southwest and Northwest Sides, expanding from neighborhoods such as Little Village and Logan Square.
Whites in turn moved into city Hispanic neighborhoods in a big way, becoming the largest group in 23 formerly Hispanic areas primarily on the city’s Northwest Side.

Hispanic populations grew in the suburbs as well. Hispanics became the largest group in most of Berwyn and large parts of Addison, Bensenville and Elk Grove Village. Further out, Hispanics displaced whites to become the most numerous group in parts of Elgin, Carpentersville, Aurora and Round Lake Beach.